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My Interview With H. R. Giger

H. R. Giger as one of his favorite subjects, Baphomet, that being the composite occult creature popularized by Eliphas Lévi in the 19th century and made spookily biomechanical by Giger in the 20th century. Giger spoke with me in 2001 about how and how much occultism had influenced his work and we discussed how this enabled his work to function as Tarot cards.

In January 2001, I was working on a review of the Giger Tarot, which was the Baphomet Tarot without Akron's occultism covering up H. R. Giger's occultism.

I wanted to find out from Giger what he thought about it, and about occultism and Tarot in general, so I asked him a lot of questions about it over two nights of talking, and he answered my questions.

What did not make it into the 2001 published edition of the interview, and none of the online copies you may find on the web, are the comments of Giger's which I edited out, as per the request of his agent, mainly dealing with Giger's views about Akron.

In this new version of the interview, I have reinserted these comments, along with some additional insights about Giger and his approach to art and occultism.

Comments

I thought John Robinson made a reasonable case for a link between the Templars and the Masons in his _Born in Blood_. Have you read David Thomson's book on the _Alien_ movies? I haven't read it yet, but I love Thomson's writing.

I think I enjoyed "Born in Blood" when I first read it, but that was a long time ago. And I might not be as kind now, and nor do I have the time to revisit it. However the Masons really developed, they certainly crafted a Templar myth as a central origin romance. So you have to consider it and Templarism. I haven't read Thomson's book. What does he think of the alien? Or Giger's art design in the first movie?

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